Hellenica

After setting in order the affairs of Lampsacus, Lysander sailed against Byzantium and Calchedon. And the people of those cities admitted him, allowing the Athenian garrisons, by the terms of the surrender, to withdraw. And those who had betrayed Byzantium to Alcibiades fled at this time to the Pontus, but afterwards they went to Athens and became Athenian citizens.

Now the Athenian garrisons, and in fact every other Athenian whom he saw anywhere, Lysander sent home to Athens, giving them safe conduct if they sailed to that one place and not if they went to any other; for he knew that the more people were collected in the city and Piraeus, the more quickly there would be a scarcity of provisions. Then, after leaving Sthenelaus, a Laconian, as governor of Byzantium and Calchedon, he sailed back to Lampsacus and occupied himself with refitting his ships.

It was at night that the Paralus arrived at Athens with tidings of the disaster, and a sound of wailing ran from Piraeus through the long walls to the city, one man passing on the news to another; and during that night no one slept, all mourning, not for the[*](405 B.C.) lost alone, but far more for their own selves, thinking that they would suffer such treatment as they had visited upon the Melians,[*](When Melos surrendered to the Athenians, in 416 B.C., the men who were taken were put to death and the women and children sold into slavery (Thuc. v. 116). The Aeginetans were expelled from their island in 431 B.C. Seven years later a large number of them were captured in their place of refuge, in Peloponnesus, and put to death (Thuc. ii. 27 and iv. 57). The other peoples mentioned had been similarly exiled, enslaved, or massacred.) colonists of the Lacedaemonians, after reducing them by siege, and upon the Histiaeans and Scionaeans and Toronaeans and Aeginetans and many other Greek peoples.

On the following day they convened an Assembly, at which it was resolved to block up all the harbours except one, to repair the walls, to station guards, and in all other respects to get the city ready for a siege. They busied themselves, accordingly, with these matters.

Meanwhile Lysander, sailing out of the Hellespont with two hundred ships, arrived at Lesbos and arranged the affairs of Mytilene and the other cities of the island; and he sent Eteonicus with ten triremes to the places on the Thracian coast, and Eteonicus brought over everything in that region to the side of the Lacedaemonians.

Indeed, the rest of the Greek world also had fallen away from the Athenians immediately after the battle, with the exception of Samos; there the people slaughtered the aristocrats and held possession of their city.

After this Lysander sent word to Agis, at Decelea, and to Lacedaemon that he was coming with two hundred ships. Thereupon the Lacedaemonians took the field with their whole force, and likewise the rest of the Peloponnesians excepting the Argives, at the command of Pausanias, the other king of the Lacedaemonians.

And when all had been gathered together, Pausanias led them to Athens and encamped[*](405 B.C.) in the Academy.

Meantime Lysander, upon reaching Aegina, restored the state to the Aeginetans, gathering together as many of them as he could, and he did the same thing for the Melians also and for all the others who had been deprived of their native states. Then, after laying waste Salamis, he anchored at Piraeus with one hundred and fifty ships and closed the entrance to the harbour against all merchantmen.

Now the Athenians, being thus besieged by land and by sea, knew not what to do, since they had neither ships nor allies nor provisions; and they thought that there was no way out, save only to suffer the pains which they had themselves inflicted, not in retaliation, but in wantonness and unjustly upon the people of small states, for no other single reason than because they were in alliance with the Lacedaemonians.

On this account they restored to the disfranchised their political rights and held out steadfastly, refusing to make overtures for peace even though many were dying in the city from starvation. When, however, their provisions had entirely given out, they sent ambassadors to Agis declaring their wish to become allies of the Lacedaemonians while still keeping their walls and Piraeus, and on these terms to conclude a treaty.

But Agis bade them go to Lacedaemon, saying that he himself had no authority. And when the ambassadors reported to the Athenians this reply, they sent them to Lacedaemon.